Posts by Sacha
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The US doesn't have to repeal the Second Amendment, just enforce it - "a properly regulated militia".
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Danielle,
What is it about the ways in which we construct masculinity which allows this to happen? How do we change THAT?
Not labelling feelings as exclusively feminine would help.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Russell Brown,
Aspie activists can be remarkably insensitive
true, though not surprising
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Stewart,
These people don't tend to rampage against better-protected groups of 'targets' who are fully capable of shooting back.
like most bullies tend to be cowards
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Sociologist Douglas Ezzy offers a well-reasoned psychological angle.
There are two ways of responding to deadly violence such as the school shooting in Connecticut.
We can respond violently, as a way of protecting ourselves from the fear and anxiety we feel. Or, we can respond by making ourselves more vulnerable, by putting aside the guns and aggressive behaviours that feed the cycle of violence.
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The person who responds violently to violence finds it difficult to see that they themselves, or a member of their circle of family and friends, may be the person who initiates violence. Rather, the threatening mass murderer is always “other,” a random killer, a mentally ill person, an ethnic other. Uncertainty, fear and vulnerability are repressed or denied, and anger and murderous desires are projected onto the threatening “other”.
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In contrast, the vulnerable response actively wrestles with fear and the desire to inflict violence. The vulnerable response recognises that we all have the capability, and sometimes the desire, to inflict great suffering on others in response to our fears and anxieties. Rather than being driven by these murderous desires, I search for alternative responses to my fear and murderous desires.
The person who chooses vulnerability keeps foremost in their mind the suffering that violence inflicts on others. My priority is to prevent or reduce suffering, even at the expense of making myself more vulnerable. From this perspective it makes sense to significantly reduce access to deadly weapons.
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Emotional self-understandings are culturally produced.
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
there's a word for that :)
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Capture: The Castle, in reply to Lilith __,
far more exciting lives
Verily. Bet that person delivered some great excuses in school days.
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Capture: The Castle, in reply to Hebe,
You have a CBD?
Your Gerry's doing his level best to choke it with cars, don't worry.
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Bruce Hitcchcock,
What no ‘nek minute’, which I loath, but was excedingly popular in the past year
see previous year
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Stewart,
+1